Families across Britain and Portsmouth are facing the toughest of times due to the cost of living crisis – particularly rocketing energy bills. So we need immediate action to help people, which is why Labour led the way in calling for an energy price freeze.
But the only viable, long-term route to lower bills and energy security is to get off the fossil fuels. Fortunately, there is an answer staring us in the face. Clean energy, like solar, wind, tidal, hydrogen and nuclear. Solar and wind power, for example, are nine times cheaper than gas. That is why the next Labour Government will make the UK a clean energy superpower by 2030, with a world leading clean power system that will save UK households £93 billion over the rest of this decade.
But what about fracking? I’m all in favour of sustainable, safe, clean fuel sources which will make a difference to prices, but this certainly isn’t one of them. Fracking is expensive, unsafe, and we know that communities across the country do not support it.
That is why Labour has proposed to ban fracking once and for all.
In 2019, every Conservative MP stood on a manifesto that pledged to ban fracking. Labour’s message is simple: we will stand up for the communities that oppose fracking, and not let the Conservatives impose another u-turn that would harm local communities and wildlife.
There are three problems with fracking. Firstly, it would not solve the energy security or price issues the UK currently faces. The shale gas extracted by fracking would make no difference to gas prices, and is a more expensive alternative to renewables, which are currently up to nine times cheaper than gas.
Next, is it safe? The government banned fracking because they said it wasn’t after earthquakes at a fracking site in Lancashire. They commissioned a report to see if safety could be guaranteed. But that report said it couldn’t. And what is the government response? To go ahead anyway and move the goalposts.
Finally, do people actually want fracking? No. Only 17% of the whole population actually support it. And there is huge opposition in the places where fracking is being planned. Liz Truss can’t even tell us what ‘local consent’ means, and there are reports that these decisions will be outsourced to the fracking companies themselves. Labour says no to this undemocratic charade.
It’s time to stop fracking in its tracks and make the South East the home of the clean energy revolution we need, with tens of thousands of jobs for local people, lower bills and doing the right thing by future generations.
Stephen Morgan MP
